British Summer Time started at 1am today, Sunday 28th March. Clocks moved forward one hour. We may have lost one hour sleep but we have gained an extra hour of sunlight in the evening which is great for touring!
The practise of changing our clocks has been going on for over 100 years. It was first introduced in 1916 to help support the war effort during the First World War by reducing coal consumption. I read today that the campaign to change the clocks was led by Mr William Willett, the Great-Great Grandfather of the lead singer of Coldplay! Ironically Coldplay went on to produce a song called "Clocks" which is one of their most famous songs! The final decision to change the clocks in Britain was probably influenced by the fact that Germany had done so the month before. Whilst Germany is considered to be the first country to implement Daylight Saving Time, Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada had implemented it 8 years earlier in 1908.
In 2019 the European Union backed a proposal to abolish the practise of changing clocks across its member countries. Dates have yet to be confirmed for this and so for 2021 this practise will continue across the EU. As the UK has now left the EU this proposal will not apply here.
Many thanks to Bernadette in the US for her inspiration behind the photo for this post. There are some who believe our prehistoric stone circles are in fact giant astronomical clocks. Whilst I can assure you that staff at these stone circles have not been out adjusting the stones for the British Summer Time (!) you may like to share a thought for the staff working for the Royal Family who will have to manually change the 600 time-pieces at Buckingham Palace and 450 time-pieces at Windsor Castle!
If you are interested in clocks, during your stay in Bath be sure to allow time to visit Wells or Salisbury where you can see two of the oldest working clocks in the world. I offer a Wells and Cheddar tour where you can see the clock in Wells and I can customise a tour to include a visit to see the clock in Salisbury which is just 20 minutes away from Stonehenge - get in touch if this interests you. Bath Abbey also offers Tower tours where you can see behind the Abbey's clock face as well as get fantastic views from the abbey roof. The tower tours are currently closed due to COVID but they are expected to re-start when Government regulations permit.
For now enjoy the lighter evenings!